EU TO FUND “CLEAN” COAL TESTS

The EU’s policy reversal, approving the award of big subsidies to “clean” coal (carbon-capture-and- sequestration, CCS) demonstration projects after having been strongly opposed to doing so, is fascinating news for several reasons.

First, the report refers to CCS not as “clean” coal but as “almost carbon-free power production.” This is only a slightly more accurate euphemism but it is a step in the right direction.

Second, the EU is now willing to put up big money, as much as $14 billion, for “tests” of CCS. 1st implication: CCS is untested, or at least inadequately tested. 2nd implication: CCS is too expensive to undertake without supplementary funding. (Conservative estimates are that CCS technology adds nearly a billion-and-a-half dollars to the cost of a plant.)

Confirming these implications is the provision in legislation expected to go before the U.S. Senate this week, H.R. 6049, providing $2.5+ billion in tax credits for advanced coal electricity pilot projects but only if they can actually demonstrate they can capture and safely sequester at least 65% of a plant's emissions.

Does that sound like proven, cost effective technology?

Third, the EU’s announcement once again reveals the seductiveness of “clean” coal’s promise. European Union officials, keenly aware of the central and possibly irreversible fact of coal as a major energy source throughout the ambitiously developing world, is willing to pay big money for anybody who can make the dream come true.

But it isn’t true now.

So why do U.S. politicians keep making speeches saying it is the answer to all the nation’s energy needs?

Why are there TV commercials saying U.S. utilities are investing in “clean” coal to meet the needs of their ratepayers?

Why do regulators consider new coal plant applications with the supposedly reassuring stipulation the plant will include “clean” coal capacity and accept the coal plant builders' argument this is a global climate change solution when, in fact, it is only a solution for getting permits to build dirty coal plants?

What is “almost carbon-free” about an energy source that destroys the landscape by mining, pollutes the atmosphere in transport and would sequester a dangerous gas without enough long-term certainty of safety to be insurable?

"clean" coal: Truth in advertising? From CBS via YouTube.

Brussels would allow state aid for carbon capture
Vera Eckert (w/Anthony Barker), September 15, 2008 (Reuters via Yahoo News)
and
EU eyes $14 bln emission permits for cabon capture
Pete Harrison (w/Paul Taylor and Peter Blackburn), September 17, 2008 (Reuters via Yahoo News)

WHO
The European Commission (EC) of the European Union (EU); EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS); Vattenfall; RWE; Siemens

WHAT
The EC approves of the idea of giving funding assistance to private companies willing to perform CCS trials. The proposal is $14 billion dollars per plant.

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WHEN
- September 2008: Vattenfall opened a 30-megawatt pilot plant.
- August 2008: RWE selected a site for a commercial-size plant.
- 2014: RWE plant could become operational.
- 2015: EU’s target is 12 demonstration CCS plants.

WHERE
- The EC is based in Brussels.
- Vattenfall is a Swedish company but it is the German unit that is testing CCS at a pilot plant in eastern Germany.
- German utility RWE selected the town of Huerth for a commercial-size plant.
- Several EU nations are working on CCS, including Poland, Britain and the Netherlands.

WHY
- If “almost carbon-free power production” were a reality, it could turn the fight against global climate change into a rout by the good guys.
- CCS is conceptually seductively simple: Using various technologies, the CO2 gas from burning coal is captured and safely sequestered.
- The main problems: (1) CO2 is not a byproduct of coal burning but a product, meaning there is a lot of it. Calculations suggest it would take new infrastructure bigger than what now exists to handle oil to manage it. (2) There is little certainty that CO2 gas can be sequestered safely over a long term.
- Funding the CCS trials represents a reversal of the EU environmental directorate’s earlier position to let the market drive trials.
- The proposed funding for CCS-trial plants would be in the form of credits tradable via the EU ETS.
- The Vattenfall pilot plant: 30 megawatts.
- The RWE commercial-size project to be operational in 6 years (maybe): 450 megawatts.
- Siemens is also developing CCS technology.

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QUOTES
- Piotr Tulej, head, EC energy and environment unit/energy directorate: "CCS is identified as potentially making a substantial contribution to CO2 reductions…really it is in the hand of member states."
- Chris Davies, member in charge of CCS legislation, EU Parliament: "It is widely recognized that the New Entrants Reserve has much spare capacity and its use will ensure that there is no overall increase in the emissions cap…The options for providing sufficient funding at a European level are very limited…My impression is that the Commission has reluctantly come to accept our proposal provides a fair basis for negotiation."